I'm so glad I'm getting everyone interested in Lepidoptera (that's the Latin name for the family that includes moths and butterflies). Ken, that's so cool that the Spicebush Swallowtail is your state butterfly! A fine choice, I think. Ours is is the Zebra Longwing, which is my profile picture. The Spicebush ST is one of our favorite caterpillars at MOSI because they have adorable false eyespots. There's actually a Pokemon based on them called Caterpie. So there's a certain generation at MOSI that's always like, "That looks like a Pokemon!" I even had a little boy look at one of our signs that has the caterpillar featured on it and he said he didn't think that was a real caterpillar. Luckily, we had some in the lab so I went and got one and showed him just how real it was! Here's a picture I took years ago at MOSI. Spicebush turn green near their last molt (before that they're brown and white) but they mysteriously turn yellow or orange right before they pupate.
Here's a smaller Spicebush. They're supposed to look like bird poop so they don't get eaten (several Swallowtail caterpillars look like this). Once they turn green with the eyespots they're a snake mimic. They make little shelters where they roll the leaves over themselves which actually makes them pretty easy to find.
It was a cool day with intermittent sprinkles so I didn't get too much done. Dad weeded and turned over the soil in my butterfly garden (the main one, anyway) and I pulled some of the smaller weeds right under the plants. I'm a little mad at him for digging up one of my Carolina Petunias despite the fact that I placed a marker right next to it. Such is life. I hate having other people in my garden unless I'm supervising them! But he's a pretty good worker most of the time.
